Chad Reed Signs with Monster Energy Kawasaki

Hilde is holding down the fort at MotoUSA's Southern Oregon HQ. With world-class dirt bike and ATV trails just minutes away, the hardest part is getting him to focus on the keyboard. Two wheels or four, it doesn't matter to our Off-Road Editor so long as it goes like hell in the dirt.

We already spotted Reed in Australia on his Kawasaki KX450F, but now it’s official that he’s racing Supercross and Motocross in America for the Monster Energy Kawasaki program.

It’s official, Chad Reed has signed on the dotted line with Monster Energy Kawasaki to race in America for 2010. We’ve already seen him racing in the Australasian Super X series (read the blog), but he is confirmed as a teammate for Ryan Villopoto to ride in the States. The cool thing is that Reedy has agreed to do AMA Supercross and the outdoor AMA Motocross series, which we applaud him for. It’s only right for the champion to defend his title.

“The Kawasaki KX450F is a great bike,” he said “I have already had a chance to ride and race it. I’m really impressed.”

Reed is no stranger to having a green fender lead him around the track, and no, we don’t mean James Stewart’s rear fender of years past. The four-time AMA champion competed in the World Motocross GP series aboard a factory Kawasaki in 2001. From there he jumped to America and it’s been blue, yellow and a very successful career ever since.

“Chad is going to bring a lot to our team,” said Monster Energy Kawasaki Team Manager Mike Fisher. “He has proven to be the most consistent rider this decade and his record speaks for itself. We have high expectations for both Chad and Ryan and I know they are going to do their best to meet them.”

This gives Kawasaki the most potentially dominant team in 2010 as far as we’ve seen thus far. The question will be how well he and Villopoto gel and whether or not that affects either of them on the racetrack. Now that RV has a full year on the big bikes under his belt, we were looking forward to watching him dice it up with Reed and maybe bang it out a little. Time will tell how these two become BFF, mortal enemies or if it even matters at all.